


Will the Real Big Bad Please Stand Up?

by yourlibrarian



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Meta, Season arcs, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6717076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In wondering about seasonal Big Bads, specifically that of BtVS S5,  I also started pondering how the Big Bad is never quite what we think it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will the Real Big Bad Please Stand Up?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted March 29, 2007

In wondering about seasonal Big Bads, specifically that of BtVS S5. I also started pondering how the Big Bad is never quite what we think it is.

My best example for that would be BtVS Season 6. It's been stated at various times that "Life" was the real villain of that year, and that the Troika and Buffy's arc represented the confusion and aimlessness that often characterizes one's early 20s. But it seems to me from the storylines that the real message was "we are our own worst enemy." Xander, Willow, and Buffy's storylines, and even secondary characters such as the Troika, Spike, Giles, Tara's etc. all seemed to come down to bringing ruin upon themselves by not taking responsibility for something. Had each taken the harder road rather than the easier one, much of the grief could have been avoided. The only person who seems exempt from this is Dawn, perhaps because she is the only non-adult at that point. I was struck by the fact that she never actually seems sorry for her actions in "Older and Far Away." Everyone else ends up the season plenty sorry though.

On the face of it, S1 seemed the clearest with the Master appearing in episode 1 and remaining a nemesis until the very last episode. In S2, the big misdirect comes with the Big Bad being, not Spike and Dru, but Angelus, with the big bads working in tandem. In S3 you could say the same was true. Even though it's the Mayor Buffy fights in the finale, Faith was, I would argue, the real Big Bad. She was able to hurt Buffy more personally than the Mayor ever could. Like Spike in S2 though, Faith ends up giving Buffy the key to victory. I would posit the seasonal Big Bads are always tied to personal challenges. In the first 3 seasons they were (1) the need and yet fear of being independent (2) relationships with others, and (3) authority figures, respectively. 

Similarly while much has been made of the magic vs. science battle in S4, it seems that the Big Bad is actually the outside world. All the characters are busy figuring out the truth about themselves when dropped into a new environment. So we have Buffy, by the end, discovering the source of her own power; Riley realizing (3 seasons before "Lies My Parents Told Me") that one's parents don't always tell you (or know) the truth about the world; Oz discovering that he is not just a person with a problem but a person with a dual nature that he can't deny any longer (oddly similar to Willow's own arc); Xander having to figure out who he is if he's not a Scooby or a student; Spike having to figure out who he is when his powers are hamstrung (or as in Anya's case, gone); and even Faith having to figure out who she is now that any support she had in the world is gone. So for each of them, either an external or an internal framework of support has been removed, and each has to come to terms with what is actually theirs versus what was given or assumed by others. 

Lastly, S7's Big Bad seems to be fear -- the sort of insecurity and anxiety that can prevent one from taking effective action in one's life. Willow is the most obvious example, but one can also see this played out by Anya, Spike, Annabelle, Andrew, and Giles. I think Xander and Buffy's actions are a little less direct (Xander's especially so because he got so little of an arc in S7), but I think they're also there. 

But S5 was a bit of a puzzler to me, and had the most red herrings in it. It starts out with, one would assume, one of the biggest bads of all, given the show's theme. Yet Dracula ends up being rather ineffective -- all flash as Spike might say. Then there start a series of episodes where it seems everyone Buffy knows is a potential threat -- Xander, Spike, Dawn, Tara -- up until we finally meet the official Big Bad, Glory. 

I started wondering then, if the real Big Bad of S5 was the power of illusion, (or if we look at Glory, the danger of false gods), believing what you want (or fear) to believe. Following along with the life cycle metaphors in the series so far, this seems an interesting time to present such an idea. For example, cult followers are often drawn from among the young due, in part, to the emotional vulnerability and identity confusion so common during that time. As one former follower said "We were not brainwashed, we brainwashed ourselves because we wanted to believe." (In fact [the cult in question](http://www.answers.com/topic/children-of-god) has a rather interesting belief about how "spiritual keys are also believed to power various UFOs and other spacecraft (known as Key Craft), and can turn into swords for the purpose of fighting demons and other negative forces.") 

Going back to Dracula, most of his power, which was at first daunting and impressive to everyone (except for Spike who should know something about illusions, as we'll later discover), ends up being a poor match to Buffy once her eyes are opened. Even so, it is Buffy who still wants to cherish her illusions about the source of her power. She is vulnerable to Dracula because of what she wants to believe about herself and about vampires. 

In the second episode (tellingly, "The Real Me") it is Buffy who disabuses Harmony of her own illusions. 

_"Harmony, when you tried to be head cheerleader, you were bad. When you tried to chair the homecoming committee, you were really bad. But when you try to be bad ... you *suck*."_

Harmony never recovers from this. For the rest of the season she is no threat to Buffy and ends up leaving Sunnydale, unable to maintain her illusion of a relationship with Spike any longer.

Dawn, of course, is nothing _but_ an illusion, except it's one that only the audience is in on, as no one else has any clue they're all participating in a mass hallucination. We also have Giles engaging in a bit of middle-aged delusion with his new car. 

Next we have Xander, who is unaware of the truth about himself because of his own self-delusion. In an opposite scenario from Harmony's, who believes she is more competent than she is, it is Xander who believes he is less competent than he is, less able to achieve what he wants. While of course he can, I think there are other illusions he continues to buy into, which is particularly notable in "Into the Woods." I have always believed that while Xander loves Anya, he is not in love with her. For the otherwise straightforward and literal Anya, it's hard to imagine what she could be fooling herself about _other_ than Xander. It isn't until the next season that it becomes clearer all is not well, but I think Anya's pretty spot on in the finale when she believes Xander is proposing as a last minute romantic gesture, not because he really believes in a future with her.

In "Out of My Mind" what Spike is fooling himself about becomes pretty clear by the episode's end. Of course, it's in the next episode where Buffy discovers both the illusion of Dawn and the official Big Bad, Glory. Interestingly, she discovers the truth because of a belief she _wants_ to have -- that her mother's sudden health problem is due to a force she can fight. Perhaps she drops that belief because she is faced with bigger problems than she imagined.

I would argue that Glory herself is just as delusional as everyone else this season -- not just literally when she needs a brain suck -- but also in her belief that trapped in Ben's body she can regain her power as a god just by leaving this dimension. As Illyria would later point out:

_I fear in any other dimension in this form I'd be but prey to those I knew. I reek of humanity_

In the next episode it is Tara who spins an illusion (quite a dangerous one as it turns out) because she herself is beset by one. Her illusion comes about mostly due to insecurity, but I’d also say the episode hammered home that a family can be the most primeval of cults, instilling illusions that last a lifetime.

"Fool for Love", of course, is all about illusions. The ones Spike once harbored, the ones he tells to Buffy, the ones we all believed of him, and even Buffy’s that her momentary slip has a reason. And there is another Big Bad that appears here, I think, that of Death. Spike telling Buffy of her death wish coming in the same episode where Joyce's death appears imminent, is a rather telling one of how the season will end. I find this especially true in how Spike is still trying to fool himself, that he wants Buffy dead. I’ll return to this later.

Interestingly in "Shadow" Glory conjures a demon that can see through illusions, just as Joyce is being examined to find the truth of her condition. In the next episode, its monster appears while Willow and Tara are discussing stars, and Willow is telling Tara: 

_The real ones never made sense to me, I ... sort of have my own._

Everything is subject to interpretation here. Mental patients having delusions are the ones who can actually see Dawn for what she is. Joyce, supposedly hallucinating in her bedroom, does actually see a demon on her ceiling. Riley, it turns out, is still working with the Initiative even though the Scoobies don't know that. Nothing is quite what it seems.

In "Into the Woods" that turns out to be the case about Buffy and Riley. We've already discovered the truth in Dracula and The Replacement, but thanks to Spike it all comes to a head. "Triangle" is full of fear and denial. Xander doesn't want to face the clashes between Anya and Willow, Anya and Willow don't want to face their own behavior, Spike doesn't want to face his responsibility for upsetting Buffy, and Buffy, well, I think it can be summed up in this phrase about Xander and Anya:

_They have a miraculous love!_

Next come the Watchers, with their supposed knowledge and expertise. In a similar fashion to Dracula, everyone is at first daunted and intimidated, but in the end Buffy breaks the illusion that they hold anything over her and reveals their actual status. In "Blood Ties" Dawn finally discovers the truth, My favorite bit of illusion in that episode?

XANDER: Well nothing, no, uh ... just saying, powerful being ... big energy gal digging the Xan-man. Some guys are just cooler, you know?

In “Crush” Buffy is disabused of her illusion that Spike is not madly crushing on her, something obvious enough to Dawn, and something Buffy’s already received numerous clues about. Spike also has to resign himself to the fact that he is not going to return to Dru, whatever he has tried to tell himself (or Harmony).

In “IWMTLY” Warren’s (and April’s) illusions about love are the main message of the episode. Buffy ends the episode realizing she can not simply move on and start to date, as she wanted to believe. 

“The Body” is, I think, singular in S5 in that within the season it seems a stark contrast of reality. Even here though there are illusions broken, the main one being that Joyce had recovered. The most poignant one is Buffy’s frantic hope that she can get a last minute reprieve and save her mother. This hope gets repeated by Dawn in “Forever”

“Intervention” is another Spike-centered episode full of illusions. These center around the Bot, who is like Dawn, an illusion. Spike wants to pretend she’s Buffy, the Scoobies see what they expect to see, not what should be obvious, and Glory’s minions also fail to understand what they see. Similarly Buffy fails to see the meaning of what she is told in her dream quest. At the end though, the illusions are all swept away and reality is asserted in Buffy’s last line: “What you did was real. I won't forget it." 

In “Tough Love” I think the central moment of illusion is Tara’s fear in believing what is before her eyes that leads to her encounter with Glory. There are other smaller mistaken beliefs. Glory thinks Tara is the Key, Dawn believes she must be evil, Buffy assumes that Willow will behave like her and not go after Glory, and Willow believes that she can actually accomplish anything by doing so. It’s kind of interesting that we don’t know (because the show never bothered addressing it) whether or not Glory’s death restored all the brain sucked people. If it didn’t, had Willow succeeded here she would actually have prevented Tara from ever getting better.

“Spiral” is the one episode where I don’t really see the issue of illusion appearing, unless one thinks of “Spiral” and “Weight of the World” as a two-parter. In that case, I think the illusion of Ben and Glory is pretty critical in the first, and the second revolves around Buffy’s own belief that her weariness has led to Dawn’s certain death. 

Lastly, in “The Gift” I think there are three interesting illusions taking place and they all revolve around the belief that sacrifice won’t be necessary. The first is Ben’s, thinking that he can be a good person and not have to make a sacrifice to do so. He attempts to free Dawn, but when it comes to actually paying for that action, he backs away. As Dawn puts it, Glory at least is not trying to fool anyone with what she is. The second is the same issue being shared by the Scoobies. No one, at any point, thinks about Buffy being the sacrifice in Dawn’s place, and Buffy is staunchly refusing to sacrifice Dawn, whether for her own reasons or because of her promise to her mother. And I do wonder how the Scoobies would have reacted if they knew what was coming. Obviously they all believe it’s quite possible they’ll die. However, given that by doing nothing they and theirs would probably all die anyway, this isn’t as sacrificial as it might otherwise be. As only Buffy is determined to save Dawn, I’d say the Scoobies would have considered her a necessary trade-off. At the end, they lose the illusion that they wouldn’t have to make a personal sacrifice for their victory. 

The last illusion came, I think, from an error made in “Weight of the World.” Spike too easily accepted that Doc was dead. Yet even having underestimated Doc twice, first in thinking he could be a source of aid, and second in thinking he was dead, Spike makes yet a third mistake in believing that he could take Doc on more easily than he did. Essentially, like Willow, he likes to believe himself more powerful and effective than he is. I find this last illusion the most interesting – not only because it ends up being the moment where victory turned to defeat, but because it highlights the issue of believing what you want to believe. 

All through the season, Spike has been the one who has not been taken in by illusions. He’s not impressed by Dracula; dismisses Harmony’s attempt at being a leader; doesn’t believe Tara’s a demon or that Dawn’s evil; discovers Riley’s ties to the vampires and tells him just why he’s ready to move on; knows Ben is Glory; and as Willow points out, was right about telling Buffy to snap out of it. In fact, his line in “The Gift” where he says “Of course, it’s got to be blood,” is another way of saying what no one wants to face –- a sacrifice is always needed. 

The problem is that Spike is as capable of self-deception as any of the rest of them, including in this last episode. Spike, being a demon, is the one least likely to be affected by Glory’s success. Even as he tells the others a sacrifice will be needed, he is not ready to make one himself. He thinks he will die, sure, but he’s willing to do that, especially if he looks good in Buffy’s eyes as he does. What he is not prepared for is that he will sacrifice the one thing he wouldn’t if he knew –- Buffy. And yet it is his own final illusion that makes this necessary.


End file.
